The internet continues to expand rapidly and internet users, worldwide, are able to browse the web faster than ever before. However, regardless of how quickly an internet user can access the web, language barriers continue to prevent the efficient dissemination of information.
The internet has attempted to address language issues by offering machine translation systems which translate a variety of input languages. However, these systems can be slow and inefficient. First, in conventional translation systems, an untranslated HyperText Markup Language (HTML) page is sent to a machine translation system that renders a translated page only after the page has been completely translated into a target language chosen by the user. This method is inefficient because it forces users to wait until translation of the entire page or pages has been completed. Many Internet users prefer skimming web pages for relevance prior to committed reading; thus, there may be instances wherein translation of the entire page is unnecessary and undesirable.
Next, conventional techniques fail to address the limiting inverse relationship between translation time and translation quality. Machine translation systems, regardless of the underlying technology used (e.g., rule-based or statistical model-based), usually trade off between translation time and quality. Generally speaking, a translation system can provide better quality translations given more time, more rules, or a more extensive statistical model. Conventional translation systems do not operate around this inherent limitation. Rather, current systems simply choose a static operating point and either sacrifice speed for quality or quality for speed.
Finally, conventional translation techniques do not apply an organized translation strategy. Current techniques indiscriminately translate web pages from start to finish. This is impractical for two reasons. First, a user may not want to wait for a complete translation of a web page. Rather, a user may want to see key words translated first. Secondly, sections of text within a structured document differ in terms of usefulness to the user. For example, navigation menus in a web page tend to relay key pieces of information in short spans of text. At the same time, large spans of text may include buried pieces of key information. Therefore, the indiscriminate, rapid translation of entire web pages lacks efficiency and only acts to decrease the overall quality of translations.
Accordingly, there exists a need for techniques for more efficiently translating and presenting text in a structured document which does not suffer from one or more problems found in conventional translation techniques.